About the Global Authentic Memory Initiative

The Global Authentic Memory Initiative develops open cryptographic infrastructure to support the long-term authenticity of historical digital records. Operated by Authentic Memory gUG, a registered German non-profit, we work with archives, memorial sites, and media institutions to ensure that humanity's historical record remains reliable in the decades ahead, as synthetic content becomes indistinguishable from authentic recorded material.

Our infrastructure is developed in conversation with partner institutions as well as an academic advisory board that combines political, educational, and technical perspectives.

Founded: November 2025
Based in: Munich, Germany
Registration: HRB 312015 · Amtsgericht München
Status: Tax-exempt non-profit · §§ 51 ff. AO

Team

Pablo Toussaint

Founder & Director
Rosa Bauer

Communications & Partnerships Lead
Florimon Poisson

Co-Founder & Technical Advisor
Ritesh Maheshwari

Interim Engineering Lead
Michael Rilk

Software Engineer
Sumit Vekariya

Software Engineer
Brandon Lee

Strategy & Development
Ella Prisco

Institutional Partnerships & Outreach
Emma Yanai

Memory Studies & Editorial Research
Francesco Zambonin

Institutional Partnerships & Outreach

Academic Advisory Board

Ali Sunyaev

Vice President & Professor for Information Systems
Jacob N. Shapiro

John Foster Dulles Professor of International Affairs
Anja Ballis

Professor for Holocaust Education
Antonia Wachter-Zeh

Professor for Coding and Cryptography

Governance & Ethics

Mission-locked

Authentic Memory gUG recognised as a non-profit under German law, legally bound to its mission under §§ 51 ff. AO, which includes a statutory asset lock (§ 61 AO), and a selflessness requirement (§ 55 AO) that prohibits using organisational resources for private benefit.

No commercial dependencies

We are funded by public grants, foundations, and institutional partnerships. We do not sell access to data, and we do not have investors holding profit expectations. There is no incentive for our priorities to shift away from the institutions we serve.

Open by default

The verification toolchain, proof-record format, and integration code are designed to be released as open source under permissive licences. The index is mirrorable; verification can be performed without any dependency on us, including offline.

Hashes only

Original files never leave the institution. We only store cryptographic fingerprints computed locally through a one-way mathematical function, from which no information about the underlying material can be extracted.

Institution-held keys

The cryptographic key that signs an institution's proofs remains entirely with the institution. We never hold it. No central authority, including us, can produce a valid proof on behalf of a partner.

Designed to outlast us

Verification rests on published standards and a public, distributed ledger, not on the continued existence of GAMI. Existing proofs remain valid even if we cease operating.

Multi-stakeholder governance

Currently overseen by a non-profit executive structure with an academic advisory board. As GAMI grows, we intend to expand into a multi-stakeholder model that draws in memory institutions, academic representatives, and civil-society stewards, so that the infrastructure is governed by the communities whose collections it protects.

Where We Stand

A short, honest account of where the project currently stands, what is operational, and what is on the horizon.

Foundation

Architecture, mission-lock and incorporation

Grounded in extensive collaboration with leading scholars and memory institutions, we defined an architecture that addresses real institutional needs, built the core cryptographic modules to implement it, and formally incorporated Authentic Memory as a non-profit.

First Pilots

Anchoring real institutional collections

With the foundation in place, we are now running the first live integrations with our institutional partners, testing the pipeline against real archival collections and refining our operations for broader use.

Open Infrastructure & Long-Term Governance

Public verifier, open source, and international scale

The long-term goal is a truly public infrastructure: an open toolchain, a mirrorable index, and a public verification interface woven into the archival and provenance ecosystems where the world's most important collections live. Governed by the institutions, researchers, and civil-society stewards who depend on it, we are creating the infrastructure humanity's historical record can rest on.